Qatar’s Ras Laffan Liquefied Natural Gas Company (Rasgas) announced on October 22nd that it had signed an agreement to supply 1.8 million tones of liquefied natural gas (LNG) a year for 25 years, beginning in 2003, with Taiwan’s Tung Ting Gas Corp. (Tung Ting).

Qatari Finance, Economy and Trade Minister and Rasgas Chairman Yousef Hussein Kamal said that a sale-and-purchase agreement (SPA) would be signed by mid-2001. In addition, Rasgas has pledged to support Tung Ting’s plans to finance, build and operate a LNG reception, regassification and storage facility in northern Taiwan.

The new LNG facility would be constructed in two phases and have a capacity of 7 million tonnes. Taiwan’s demand for natural gas is expected to reach 13 million tones in 2010 and 16 million tones in 2020.

Rasgas, one of Qatar’s two LNG joint ventures formed to produce from the giant North Field, which contains the world’s largest single concentration of natural gas, is owned by the state-run Qatar General Petroleum Corp. (QGPC), with a 63 percent stake, Exxon Mobil with 25 percent South Korea’s Korean Gas Corporation (Kogas) with 5 percent, Japan’s Itochu with 4 percent and Nissho Iwai with 3 percent.

Qatar holds the world’s third-largest gas reserves and plans to export up to 25 million tonnes of gas per year by 2005. Rasgas has signed 25-year SPAs to supply Kogas with 4.8 million tones of LNG per year and Petronet with 7.5 million tones. Qatargas, the country’s first project, has been supplying Japan with 6 million tonnes of gas per year since 1996.